*** ASCII-on-the-Mac.doc *** When the Macintosh stoops to converse with the rest of the world on the email (= electronic mail) network the Macintosh user has to adapt to the old ASCII system (=American Standard for Computer Information Interchange of 1963). Since, on the Macintosh, ASCII is neither clearly delimited nor optimally implemented, some learning and adaptation on the part of the user is required. The following comments may help. Leaving aside details of little interest, one can say that under the ASCII regime the Mac user is simply required to use only TEXT files and therein use only the characters 9 (tab), 13 (carriage return), 32 (space) and 33 -- 126, which are : !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_` abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~ Roughly speaking, these are the common unaccented caracters and diacritics of American typewriters the early 20th century. Unfortunately there are problems: (A) The following common diacritics are not ASCII and must not be used although they may be marked on the keyboard: section (= \S in TeX) degree dieresis pound sign yen (B) The following ASCII characters are often somewhat inaccessible (depending on your Mac model and software!) \ | @ # You do well to hunt them down and mark them somehow. (C) The following characters are marked but on "dead-keys" (=keys that give bo result on first being struck) ` ^ ~ and perhaps ' " On early Macs the dead keys were typed by double-striking them. From the coming of the ADB (=Apple Desktop Bus) keyboards in 1987(?), dead keys became spooky; the double strike to obtain the dead-key character was invalidated and replaced by the dead-key followed by spacebar. For many users that takes twice as long as the original double strike. In 1988 Fabien Samuel wrote at my request a low level system patch (for the KeyTrans ROM routine) to restore the original behavior of dead-keys. It comes in the form of an INIT file called KeyTransPatchInit to be put in your system folder. It is given immediately below in binhex coded form. Put the binhex code and preamble in a TEXT file on the Mac and decode with BinHeX or CompactPro or Stuffit to obtain the INIT file. (This file must be converted with BinHex 4.0) :(%YPH94bB@jc8'&dBfK*EQPd+'4PB@3YDf9jFbN!58j*9%CK8f%K!!!!!!!!!!2 -%1d!!!!!!3!!!!-"!!!#!3!!!-[!!B!2i!'!(r!"J"ji!B!m2!'!1"`"J(!i!B" `1!'!i"a,CAP8FQ&ZFe"KG'0S5@jTG#KNC@&N,@YPHA-T,3)!!!"*6NP84Q&6B5! !rmF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!+,YU3d!!!!!!!!$c)!!!!+!!!!#J!!!!S+ UUS+!!!!#L!!!)S!!!!+)!!!LJ!!!!SJ!!#+!!!!#L!!!)S!!!!+)!!!LJ!!!!SJ !!#+!!!!#L!!!)S!!!!*rrrrm!!!!J!$rr`!"rrq!!rrr`!Iqrq!2r(r`(qaRq$r %4rara%Iqrd4(rrj%4rrq4%IrrN3!!!")B!3!!!!!)&mLAc!I)Km[#%j@!!")ja! J*%P#J`J!!!GQ!LB53UF[!6m!,`NJH[r86T!!,9m!##)$C`BN[!!!!!"-h`3)6Pj 1G3!!!!3!!!")!!!"!2rrrrq!!!!"[R2[4D+)L%@LL)Kp[[L)4D#)L%@JL)p&J!! !!Irrrrq!!!!"QUUUUB!!!!'9999CJ!!!!CUUUUQ!!!!"KArr8B!!!!'!!!!"rrr rri!!!!(rrrrrrrrrr`!rq!!!!i!!!!%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!rrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!$r i!!!$J!!!!3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!F4Q&6B3!!!!&'8N9'!!! !!!#!5801)`!!!!!!J!!!!!G*6NP8!!!!!!!!0M!i!9S-3!3!DbT#Tbmm5h43-8* RUD!LAb!*CaJ[#DQ5-$`"`k&')P%M5!!#-$`"`b"*S%G1G3!!!%"#5f9j9(*KER0 3BA4MD#"*EQPd)#dJ3fp`HA*TCfKd)%CKBQPPEL"6B@eeC@`J-6Ni1#!J)#!J)#! J)#!J)#!J!!!"!!!!!`%!!!)"!!!!b`!+JB`6'J!!!"`!UJ!'5h43-3!!!$TcHA0 k!!!!4NP$6L-!!!"53Nj%6!!!!&j'8N9'!!!!DNCK8f%!!!"f58j*9!!!!))!!!! !8!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1)!!!6!!!!!!!J2rr*!!!9!!!!!!!J2rr)!!"@!!!!!!!J2r r!!!"H!!!!!!!!2rr)!!"[3!+JA`!!!!@%!!"J`!!!!!05f9j9(*KER03BA4MD!G ,G("6DATP#NYdF%PZFh4KE'bcL`: There is still a minor bug or two in the patch; perhaps someone will take up the challenge to fix it? With the above patch, the Mac on its own types and displays ASCII reasonably well with almost any Mac prose font. But the situation may take a turn for the worse once the Mac is connected to the net. The "terminal program" often fails to establish full ASCII communication between the Macintosh and the host computer on the net. NCSATelnet One bad example still widely used is the NCSATelnet program (non-TCP form); it allows the Mac to be a Telnet node on a local network, usually ethernet or Apple's Local Talk. The most freindly versions seem to be 2.2 and 2.3. About ten ASCII characters become inaccessible and have to be replaced by command keys on the numerical keypad: Command 0, ... Command 9. The following seems a suitable arrangement 7 ` 8 < 9 > 4 { 5 | 6 } 1 ~ 2 # 3 \ 0 @ To retain these from one session to the next one should add to the configuration file the following lines: key0= "@" key1= "~" key2= "#" key3= "\\" key4= "{" key5= "|" key6= "}" key7= "`" key8= "<" key9= ">" This is just one terminal program of recent times. Expect similar problems with others. That being so, the Mac user is well advised to collect means that let him survive with a crippled keyboard. The device of copying from and pasting to the terminal program window is one of the most powerful. It permits one to do essentially all typing and editing in one's favorite text editor. Another helpful item is the KeyFinder desk accessory available from sumex.stanford.edu. It lets one type with the mouse. This collection of "helpful hints" for Macs in the ASCII world is highly subjective. Readers are most welcome to suggest useful additions. Larry S